Budget 2017 : Child Sex Abuse Compensation to Cost Feds $600m

By Rick Morton
The Australian
May 11, 2017

https://goo.gl/ZC8KFC

The federal government will be forced to set aside $600 million for survivors of child sex abuse in its national redress scheme, 50 per cent more than estimates made by the royal commission into the issue.

The Australian understands the government has run an actuarial analysis on its share of the redress scheme, which it seed-funded with $33m in Tuesday’s budget, and has settled on a figure of about $600m.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse recommended a ­single, national redress scheme valued at $4.3 billion to provide compensation and medical and therapy support to 60,000 victims of abuse.

Federal and state governments would be “funders of last resort” under this model, picking up the pieces where non-government organisations have closed or been bankrupted and, in some cases, funding their own redress where they were responsible.

Their share of the scheme — across all jurisdictions — was estimated by the commission to be $632m but, given the federal government’s portion alone is set to be almost as much, it is likely states will need to chip in more than first thought.